An in memory database platform is deployable as an on-premise appliance, or as a remote server, sometimes referred to as being in the cloud. It is a platform that's best suited for performing real-time analytics, and developing and deploying real-time applications. At the core of this real-time data platform is an in memory database which is fundamentally different than common database engines where data is stored in slower but cheaper storage devices such as disk drive devices.
Database management systems on the market are typically either good at transactional workloads, or analytical workloads, but not both. When transactional database management systems are used for analytical workloads, they require separating workloads into different databases such as OLAP, Online Analytical Processing and OLTP, Online Transaction Processing. Data from transactional systems have to be transformed for reporting, and loaded into a reporting database. The reporting database still requires significant effort in creating and maintaining tuning structures such as aggregates and indexes to provide even moderate performance.